Fabrication 101

I was inspired to do a photo log of a recent job I did and was going to post it on the "wookie (rookie) wannabe" thread, but after looking at how many pictures and detail was in the project I did not want to hog up pages in that thread. I always find it interesting to read about what others here make at home and at their jobs and thought I would post this.
This job came to me early in the snow season from a guy who said- if you can fix it for under $4k, fix it- I am heading south. The 4k bench was set by the local dealer who said the replacement piece would cost him that ? Guess there was a lot of labor.
So here it starts - Load on to welding table so I can work at a height my old body can handle.
here you can see the ear for the lower control arm is snapped off
A little sample of Gods country right outside the door- but there was work to do
Measure original bushing so I can make a dummy shaft to align the bores.
do a little of this
on this
And get this half thou under so I can get it back out with out later without too much effort-
The reflection makes it hard to read- I did use a mic not just this caliper.
Looks like a winner - this will be split and sleeved later so I can collapse it to get it out after welding
Here I went to cutting this and squaring it up so it will be easier to make the piece to weld in, I did a lot of it with a hand file. The cast aluminum is soft and easy to file and keeps me from getting to aggressive and removing too much, for the machining end of this project the time taken here is well spent-little time now saves a lot later (I hope)

locate a piece of 6061 to use, this looks good, maybe a little long ?
Saw it a little smaller
head over to start turing that piece into little tiny shavings - not all of it , but most.
Set up to do the bore and counter bore - its sad when you can just keep cheating the cutter size to get a perfect bore- I rarely use a boring head anymore on a mill.
cutting the first bore
Here is a good start. The back side there was already cut - this was a left over piece. The facing was way fast- finish at this point was not of concern

Thats it for tonight. That big piece will get pretty small by the time I am done

Taking shape
Checking the progress, here you can see where I took the alignment tool and cut the middle section out and put a inside sleeve in, this way I can get it all out easier down the road.
Ready for layout
proceed to hacking on it. Its getting smaller but closer to finished
Looking pretty good, not perfect
A few boring steps skipped to get here. This was where I really second guess myself. I decided to install a couple small cap head bolts (8-32), there was no easy way to clamp this piece and I have no idea how much this will want to pull from welding, at this point I can only guesstimate. The cast is soft and I think the 6061 will weld good to it, I will use 4043 filler which has been my most common filler used on aluminum castings. The cap heads do add strength in regard to the pulling force, but the casting is soft and even with over 1" of threads It is not near what the bolt strength is. Then there is the fact I added "holes" to the new piece that do weaken it. My thought is that most of the force on this other then when hitting a tree is actually pulling on it, and the force will be more in the center of the new cap then the sides. Either way the decision (right or wrong) was to go with two stainless 8-32's (had to order bolts). I used steel cap heads for now so I could make sure the drilling,reaming,and tapping were all good,plus keep moving forward.
Everything cleaned up, fit, and chamfered for welding.
Done welded,cooled down
You can see the fit was good, I snapped the side of the crappy bushing off popping it out during the test fit. A little file work and the new bolts and thats that.

I agree, I think half that was in labor. What I was told was that a lot of this is riveted together so changing this piece is a lot of drilling. But then again how hard is it to drill an aluminum rivet ? In many cases its probably easier then trying to hold the nut while removing a bolt. Sad times, the Yamaha dealer charges like $95 an hour: I charge $50. Then again, 9 out of 10 homes seem to have a sled out front here, 1 out of 1000 need something fabricated ( and there is only 200 homes in town ) I have to be cheap.

Sad times, the Yamaha dealer charges like $95 an hour: I charge $50. Then again, 9 out of 10 homes seem to have a sled out front, 1 out of 1000 need something fabricated ( and there is only 200 homes in town ) I have to be cheap.

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I like your reasoning. Great thread, thanks for taking the time to take pictures and post them.

Nice fab work, too! No surprise there. Thanks for taking the time to post and explain everything you are doing.

What does the blue dye do? Act like a guide coat to see how much you're taking off?

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Blue dye is layout fluid, couple uses for it, its nice for touching a tool off and in this case it was used so I could get the rough outline of where I needed to cut, lay fluid and a scribe are pretty handy and can be surprisingly accurate.

Maybe time to nOOb up this thread with some Sailah machining. This should be in Fabrication 001 Copied this from my build thread

Got my stuff back from the waterjet guy.

First the Dong is Done

Fits well, I knew I'd have to grind it where the welds from the tab attach to the frame. No biggie, and the bolts line up great. I'm going to punch some holes in it and hopefully find a good peg position when the new IMS pro pegs arrive. My waterjet guy looks at me when I walked in and said "WTF is that??"

He also made a plate that the fuel pump will bolt to. I had to open up the hole slightly to about 60 mm. I don't use my 4 jaw chuck often but tonight was one of those nights

Here it is bolted to the plate

And the 4" square tubing I'm basing the surge tank from

I need to find a sealant for the threads as they will be exposed to gas, didn't really think that through. Any suggestions? I bought some Loctite No 567 sealant as it was recommended for gasoline.

I need to find a sealant for the threads as they will be exposed to gas, didn't really think that through. Any suggestions? I bought some Loctite No 567 sealant as it was recommended for gasoline.

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Wait a minute- skip the hat- how about you have me do little water cutting for you on the discount plan ? I still gotta make good with you some how !
couldnt that piece have blind tapped holes so you dont have to use sealer ? I just hate to count on sealer, you know how it is, less chances you give it to leak- the less chance it leaks.

Close- jacks, snowmobile jacks (powder jack). They are actually 100% made in the USA- 90% right here in Colorado - in my shop . The company owners used to farm some of the work out but I managed to get most of it into my hands. For a few months out of the year it is pretty good work, no home run job, but it makes some money and they really do have a great product.

couldnt that piece have blind tapped holes so you dont have to use sealer ? I just hate to count on sealer, you know how it is, less chances you give it to leak- the less chance it leaks.

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He'd need about twice the thickness. I'm thinking that you start with twice the thickness, but mill out everything on the back side except for the screw bosses, leaving raised cylinders 2.5x the screw diameter to accept the threaded holes. That way the plate doesn't protrude from the end of the tank any more than it does now, but allows for blind holes. I'd leave a smooth radius around the bosses to reduce the chance of cracking. Just don't drill and tap too deeply into the bosses to keep the ends from fracturing, and mind how much threadlocker is put in there.